Your thoughts on beauty pageants...

[Lumière]

I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.
Will chime in a little later. 


~M

[Kelda]

I said other because it really seems to be an emercian (and canadian?) concept.

But for the most part they seem lame of what I know of them..... that clips of that girl talkign about iraq and the 50 states?? What the hell!?!

But then I guess it can produce really clever women - like Dustin & Kandice and from The Amazing Race. Both intelligent fiesty women,

[ifyoucantfixit]

         I always cringe when it comes to the Q n A part.  Those girls all want to save mankind.    Or they just
seem to be totally an idiot..I feel sorry for them...  Its embaressing.!!

[Lumière]

Here are a few thoughts I have on the subject..

* On the issue of child beauty pageants - I am strongly opposed.  The idea of dressing up kids in outrageous costumes and then allowing them to be 'judged' based on their 'beauty and/or talents' is quite disturbing to me.  I understand that some parents may feel that it is entertainment and fun for the kids but I always wonder about the kids who do not win the contests.  Do they understand that it is not to be taken seriously or do they go away believing that they are not beautiful or talented enough?

* I had this discussion on beauty pageants with a few people not long ago and someone mentioned that it is empowering in a way for women to strut their stuff in confidence or something along those lines.  Problem is, most pageants are not really open to women of all shapes and sizes, are they?  All I can say is thank goodness I don't feel the need to be empowered by standing around in a bikini and high-heels for all to see..

* I voted "They are alright as long as the participants are adults" because, let's face it, if someone wishes to subject themselves to be judged by a certain standard/definition of beauty, they are free to go right ahead.  There will always be people ready and willing to watch. 

[Scott6373]

There are all sorts of entertainments that people enjoy.  I don;t see this particular one as being inherently bad...anymore.  I think pageant people have tried very hard to portray the pageants as not just a cheesecake factory.  I don't  feel as though they are totally awful, but I don't care to watch them.

Pageants for children...now that's another story...they are just an abomination.

[delalluvia]

Pageants for children?  Let's not mince words, they are pageants for little girls.  The little girls are taught young how to objectify themselves, put their physical selves on display for judgment by others and worst of all, learn to care about that.  And yes, they feel really bad when they lose and someone else wins - not because they're smarter or did better on a test, but because their appearance was better and they performed better.  Society sure does like women who do tricks.  I don't see many pageants for men or little boys.   

Little girl pageants are abominations and should be looked on with the contempt they deserve for what they teach little girls.

Adult beauty pageants?  Women beauty pageants.  Did you ever see the movie "Miss Congeniality"?

To paraphrase a couple of lines from the two main characters,

"They want to get money for college, travel, see the world..."

"So join the Marines...it's like feminism never happened."

[injest]

Pageants for children?  Let's not mince words, they are pageants for little girls.  The little girls are taught young how to objectify themselves, put their physical selves on display for judgment by others and worst of all, learn to care about that.  And yes, they feel really bad when they lose and someone else wins - not because they're smarter or did better on a test, but because their appearance was better and they performed better.  Society sure does like women who do tricks.  I don't see many pageants for men or little boys.   

Little girl pageants are abominations and should be looked on with the contempt they deserve for what they teach little girls.

Have you seen one, Del? They teach the girls to go out and shake like hookers and take articles of clothing off...(practicing for the 'pole' I am assuming) The mothers say it is for the girls..."They love it!!" then you see the girls crying and the mothers screaming at them...

[delalluvia]

Have you seen one, Del? They teach the girls to go out and shake like hookers and take articles of clothing off...(practicing for the 'pole' I am assuming) The mothers say it is for the girls..."They love it!!" then you see the girls crying and the mothers screaming at them...

Gag. 

[injest]

I like going to gay strip clubs, which is basically beauty pageants for hot young men.  The winner is the one who gets the most money stuffed down his G-string.   

I am not surprised.

[Kerry]

This was all succinctly put is perspective for me by a well known Australian comedian. In an endeavour to be kind, let us say that it's probably unlikely she will ever win a beauty pageant. However, having said that, she has a brilliant  brain and a rapier-sharp wit, which define her comedy stand-up technique. Before going into comedy, she was a practising lawyer. She's very smart. As part of her comedy routine, she describes how she used to get her jollies whilst working as a lawyer in downtown Sydney. At lunchtime, she would attend the various fashion parades in the big department stores in the city. She'd take a seat "ringside" and when the gorgeous, leggy models passed by on the catwalk, she'd call up at them, "Speak, ya bitch! Speak!" Knowing full-well that they didn't have the intelligence to string a sentence together to save their lives. Unkind on her part? Definitely. Sour grapes? Probably. It's true, though, that these stunningly beautiful women are not exactly known for their intelligence. Their beauty is skin-deep and it's transitory. One day, they're going to have to come to terms with the reality of surviving without their beauty to bail them out.

[Kerry]

When I was about 15 my sister and I went to a teen fashion show at a nearby shopping mall right before the new school year was to start.  I was struck by the beauty of one of the young men in the show, and I watched him closely.  Later I saw this same boy in a store, and I couldn't keep my eyes off of him.  As luck would have it, he showed up at my school that fall, and he remembered me looking at him, and he spread word all over school that I was a fag.

What did I do wrong?  He put himself on display, and I found him to be attractive, so I looked at him.    

You did nothing wrong, Gary. Creeps like him are a dime a dozen!

[Lumière]

Pageants for children?  Let's not mince words, they are pageants for little girls. 

Pageants for little girls are more common for sure but there are those for little boys as well.

Have you seen one, Del? They teach the girls to go out and shake like hookers and take articles of clothing off...(practicing for the 'pole' I am assuming) The mothers say it is for the girls..."They love it!!" then you see the girls crying and the mothers screaming at them...

[source = http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/06.08/beauty.html]

From her researcher’s view, Levey got a good idea of why people do and don’t participate [in child pageants]. When some of the children lost baby teeth that had not been replaced by pageant time, their parents fit them with false teeth. When a girl’s hair was too short to curl like Barbie’s, fake additions were fitted. "Things like this showed me that these are not just contests to judge natural beauty," she comments.

It’s not cheap to show off your child’s beauty. Parents typically spend between $100-$200 on pageant clothing, although some pay as much as $1,000 for a gown. Pageant fees cost another $100-$200 per contest, and the 41 mothers who Levey interviewed competed in an average of five pageants during the past year. In addition, those with higher incomes may hire someone to do the child’s hair, or a pageant coach to give their child an extra advantage.

One mother told Levey: "I know people who have spent so much on pageants, they lost their trailers."

Of about 120 "beauties" Levey saw, five or six were boys. One mother said she puts her son in pageants because he likes being on stage and to have people clap for him. "It gives him confidence," she said.

Gaining poise and confidence is cited most often by parents as the reason for putting their child into these contests. "She learns skills such as going out in a crowd, not to be shy, and to be herself while people are watching and focusing on her," one mother noted.

"You see this a lot among people on the lower-income and education scales," Levey comments. "They want their kids to learn skills that are needed to move up the social scale."

One mother put it this way: "I want my child to be aware that there’s always going to be somebody better than her. It’s a hard thing to learn – it was for me – and I want her to start early."



 

[delalluvia]

Pageants for little girls are more common for sure but there are those for little boys as well.

[source = http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/06.08/beauty.html]

Strange.

From her researcher’s view, Levey got a good idea of why people do and don’t participate [in child pageants]. When some of the children lost baby teeth that had not been replaced by pageant time, their parents fit them with false teeth. When a girl’s hair was too short to curl like Barbie’s, fake additions were fitted. "Things like this showed me that these are not just contests to judge natural beauty," she comments.

This kinda takes away from the mother's comment later in your text where she says she enters her child in beauty contests so that she will learn how to "be herself".  How can she be herself when she's possibly wearing pageant gowns, hairpieces, adult makeup, false teeth and 'costumes'?!?!

Utterly bizarre.

It’s not cheap to show off your child’s beauty. Parents typically spend between $100-$200 on pageant clothing, although some pay as much as $1,000 for a gown. Pageant fees cost another $100-$200 per contest, and the 41 mothers who Levey interviewed competed in an average of five pageants during the past year. In addition, those with higher incomes may hire someone to do the child’s hair, or a pageant coach to give their child an extra advantage.  "You see this a lot among people on the lower-income and education scales," Levey comments. "They want their kids to learn skills that are needed to move up the social scale."

Wonder how this explains JonBenet Ramsey?  Child from an extremely wealthy family.

Gaining poise and confidence is cited most often by parents as the reason for putting their child into these contests. "She learns skills such as going out in a crowd, not to be shy, and to be herself while people are watching and focusing on her," one mother noted.

One mother put it this way: "I want my child to be aware that there’s always going to be somebody better than her. It’s a hard thing to learn – it was for me – and I want her to start early."

Let's just say enrolling your child in Debate classes will accomplish the same thing, but instead of having one's child obsessed with costumes and glamour makeup, hairpieces and talent shows, they actually learn analytical thinking, the art of rhetoric, poise, coolness under pressure, competiveness and it could help them get into Ivy League schools if they excel.
 

[Wishes]

I say it's just entertainment. I remember watching them as a kid. I have not watched them in years.

The Miss California pageant used to be held in my home town and I remember there were active protests at the Civic Auditorium when the pageant was going on.

I'm not pretty and have never got anything based on my looks. I say if someone can, more power to them. I don't envy beauty. Not that that all these persons are what I would consider beautiful. I actually feel sorry for some who find the whole of their being based on what they look like.

[HerrKaiser]

I say it's just entertainment. I remember watching them as a kid. I have not watched them in years.

The Miss California pageant used to be held in my home town and I remember there were active protests at the Civic Auditorium when the pageant was going on.

I'm not pretty and have never got anything based on my looks. I say if someone can, more power to them. I don't envy beauty. Not that that all these persons are what I would consider beautiful. I actually feel sorry for some who find the whole of their being based on what they look like.

Well put and to the point. Up until the mid 80s, the Miss America pageant was one of the highest rated TV events each year. Americans love their own versions of royalty--beauty queens, muscle men, movie stars, sports stars--it's all the same. What's the difference between a guy who happens to be able to dunk a leather ball into a metal hoop and a gal who can walk down a runway to the cheers of the crowd? Not much in my opinion.

I knew a Miss America in former times and she was a grounded and healthy and together as anyone on this forum would claim to be. She got a huge scholarship and has had many opportunities afforded to her by virtue of winning that title. More power to her and the others.